Oct
05

Numbers Don't Lie

Compiling five years of weekly essays, "Numbers Don't Lie: 71 Things You Need to Know About the World" (2020) is one of Vaclav Smil's many books. The author is prolific and influential (apparently Bill Gates has read all of his nearly 40 books, and Gates promoted this book in particular). He is also the academic many dream to be - apparently attending only one faculty meeting over decades of being a professor - his "reclusive" approach was tolerated by the University of Manitoba so long as he kept publishing popular books and taught classes. That is more on the author as usual because this book is disappointing, with a wide ranging / sometimes random set of topics handled with OpEd level of detail. The value of this collection, of already published short articles, is unclear (but Vaclav sells far more books than I do...). If you are new to Vaclac Smil, I'd probably start elsewhere.  

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